Laura Smalarz

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Laura Smalarz is a psychologist researching psychology as it is related to the law. Smalarz focuses her work on forensic evidence, eyewitness identification, and the wrongfully convicted. [1] She is an Associate Professor of psychology and director of the psychology and law lab at Arizona State University. [1]

Contents

Education

Laura Smalarz received a Bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of San Diego in 2008. [2] She proceeded to receive a PhD in Social Psychology from Iowa State University in 2015 under the mentorship of both Gary Wells and Stephanie Madon. [1] Smalarz focused her dissertation, entitled Pre Feedback Eyewitness Statements: Proposed Safeguard Against Feedback Effects on Evaluations of Eyewitness Testimony, on how eyewitness testimony is used to implement convictions in the United States, more specifically wrongful convictions. [3] Majority of her graduate work and published papers are focused eyewitness identification and eyewitness testimony. [4]

Career

Freshly out of graduate school, Laura took a position as an assistant professor of psychology at Williams College in Massachusetts where she worked until July 2019. [5] During her time at Williams College, she published a number of papers and journal articles focusing on stereotype bias, [6] eyewitness lineups and identification, [7] memory performance during lineups, [8] and an analysis of Miranda following its 50 year anniversary. [9]

After leaving Williams College in 2019, Laura took a position as an associate professor of psychology in the School of Interdisciplinary Forensics at Arizona State University. [1] At Arizona State University, Smalarz teaches a number of psychological research classes as well as psychology of criminal investigation. [10]

Smalarz is also the director of the Psychology and Law Lab at Arizona State University. [11] Her lab studies all types of eyewitness factors including identification, confidence, and testimony especially in regards to social influence and stereotyping. [11] The main focus of her research lab includes evaluating eyewitness identification evidence in regards to legal professionals and how it can influence wrongful convictions. [1] Along with teaching and running a research lab, Smalarz is an Editorial Board member for multiple psychological journals including Law and Human Behavior; Psychology, Public Policy, and Law; and Psychology Crime and Law. [1] She also has associations with the Innocence Project, serving on the Research Advisory Board. [1]

Research

Smalarz began her research at Iowa State University under the direction ofGary Wells and Stephanie Madon. [1] Beginning in 2011, she was first featured as an author in two different journals: Oxford Bibliographies and The Journal of Clinical and Social Psychology. [1] Both of these journal articles focused on eyewitness identification and testimony, as well as stereotyping within these categories. [12] [13] However, the article published in The Journal of Clinical and Social Psychology regarding the negative implications of racial bias in eyewitness identification is her most cited article to date, with a total of 440 citations as of October 2024. [4]

In 2012, Laura published a paper with the American Psychological Association about the effects of eyewitness certainty in an identification process. [14] In this specific paper, she was featured as the first author for the first time. [14] Throughout her time at Iowa State University, she continued to publish multiple papers in various journal articles about the problems with eyewitness identification. [1] Smalarz received a grant from the National Institute of Justice Graduate Research Fellowship Program to complete her dissertation which focused on the relationship between eyewitness identification and how it leads to wrongful convictions. [3]

During her time at Williams College, she published numerous papers regarding eyewitness testimony and identification. [15] [1] These papers each had unique takes on eyewitness testimony and identification including: stereotyping, [6] [16] memory performance, [17] wrongfully convicted exonerations through the use of DNA, [18] police interrogations, [19] lineups, [20] [21] and mobilization and resistance [22] to name a few. Also during this time, she conducted a 50 year anniversary psychological analysis on Miranda rights which has been cited a number of time. [9]

Throughout her short career at Arizona State University, Laura has been busy publishing a wide range of papers with a primary focus specifically regarding wrongful convictions in relation to eyewitness identification. [1] Her early work at Arizona State University offers various takes on disclosing feedback to eyewitness identification, [23] [24] [25] confidence and reliability, [26] [27] [28] and line ups. [29] [30] In 2023, she published three different papers discussing the effects race and social stereotypes in a legal setting, [31] [32] as well as how race influences wrongful convictions. [33] In 2024, Smalarz has published a paper evaluating the confidence of eyewitness testifiers in their identifications of a suspect who experienced sub-optimal witnessing conditions. [34] She is currently in the process of researching the phenomena of assuming a suspect is guilty when they choose to remain silent. [1]

Community outreach and advocacy

Laura Smalarz dedicates a lot of her time doing work for the National Innocence Project, including making multiple appearances in media speaking on and defending the wrongfully convicted. [1] In these appearances, she specifically focuses and speaks on wrongfully convicted Lydell Grant. [1] In this specific case, Smalarz worked to determine issues in a lineup that wrongfully identified Grant to a lifetime in prison. [35] In her article, she discusses how many lineups are conducted with previous bias and a suspect already in mind. [35] She states, "The police did not use scientific best practices for collecting the eyewitness identification evidence" and continues on to explain the bias choices that led to Grant's conviction. [35]

Smalarz has also made an appearance on the One Minute Remaining Podcast where she spoke about the implications eyewitness testimony has on wrongful convictions. [36] In another interview, she emphasizes the import of research and how impactful it can be for not only the students and researchers, but specifically in her case, the wrongfully incarcerated. [37] Smalarz says, "Having research experience can be make-or-break for students who are applying to graduate school. Experience cannot be overstated". [37]

Related Research Articles

In law, a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what they know or claim to know.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Weapon focus</span> Psychological phenomenon

Weapon focus is the concentration on a weapon by a witness of a crime and the subsequent inability to accurately remember other details of the crime. Weapon focus is a factor that heavily affects the reliability of eyewitness testimony. This effect involves a witness to a crime diverting his or her attention to the weapon the perpetrator is holding, thus causing memory impairments and leaving less attention for other details in the scene, such as the attacker’s face, clothing or vehicle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Police lineup</span> Criminal justice identification process

A police lineup or identity parade is a process by which a crime victim or witness's putative identification of a suspect is confirmed to a level that can count as evidence at trial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert A. Bjork</span> American cognitive psychologist (born 1939)

Robert Allen Bjork is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on human learning and memory and on the implications of the science of learning for instruction and training. He is the creator of the directed forgetting paradigm. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.

Kathy Pezdek is Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences (SBOS), Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. Dr. Pezdek is a cognitive psychologist specializing in the study of eyewitness memory. She frequently serves as an expert witness in the area of eyewitness identification and has testified on this topic in Federal, State and Superior Court cases. Her extensive research has focused on a range of topics related to Law and Psychology that apply to both adults and children. These topics include face memory, false memory, suggestibility of memory, lineup techniques, and detecting deception. Kathy Pezdek is a Fellow of the American Psychological Society, has served as Editor of Applied Cognitive Psychology and is currently on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Applied Psychology and Legal and Criminological Psychology.

In eyewitness identification, in criminal law, evidence is received from a witness "who has actually seen an event and can so testify in court".

The cross-race effect is the tendency to more easily recognize faces that belong to one's own racial group, or racial groups that one has been in contact with. In social psychology, the cross-race effect is described as the "ingroup advantage," whereas in other fields, the effect can be seen as a specific form of the "ingroup advantage" since it is only applied in interracial or inter-ethnic situations. The cross-race effect is thought to contribute to difficulties in cross-race identification, as well as implicit racial bias.

Eyewitness testimony is the account a bystander or victim gives in the courtroom, describing what that person observed that occurred during the specific incident under investigation. Ideally this recollection of events is detailed; however, this is not always the case. This recollection is used as evidence to show what happened from a witness' point of view. Memory recall has been considered a credible source in the past, but has recently come under attack as forensics can now support psychologists in their claim that memories and individual perceptions can be unreliable, manipulated, and biased. As a result of this, many countries, and states within the United States, are now attempting to make changes in how eyewitness testimony is presented in court. Eyewitness testimony is a specialized focus within cognitive psychology.

Memory conformity, also known as social contagion of memory, is the phenomenon where memories or information reported by others influences an individual and is incorporated into the individual's memory. Memory conformity is a memory error due to both social influences and cognitive mechanisms. Social contamination of false memory can be exemplified in prominent situations involving social interactions, such as eyewitness testimony. Research on memory conformity has revealed that such suggestibility and errors with source monitoring has far reaching consequences, with important legal and social implications. It is one of many social influences on memory.

Eyewitness memory is a person's episodic memory for a crime or other witnessed dramatic event. Eyewitness testimony is often relied upon in the judicial system. It can also refer to an individual's memory for a face, where they are required to remember the face of their perpetrator, for example. However, the accuracy of eyewitness memories is sometimes questioned because there are many factors that can act during encoding and retrieval of the witnessed event which may adversely affect the creation and maintenance of the memory for the event. Experts have found evidence to suggest that eyewitness memory is fallible.

Gail S. Goodman is an American psychologist, known as one of the first in her field to study children's roles in the legal system, specifically children's eyewitness testimony pertaining to the Sixth Amendment. Her awards for her contributions to research, writing, and teaching include the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest in 2017. Her involvement includes being cited in United States Supreme Court cases, which is rare for psychologists.

Roderick Cameron Lodge Lindsay is a Canadian psychologist who studies the area of psychology and law, and focuses on eyewitness memory. In 1974, he received his bachelor's degree at the University of Toronto and in 1978 he received his master's degree from the University of Alberta. Lindsay also received his Ph. D from the University of Alberta in 1982.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary L. Wells</span>

Gary L. Wells is an American psychologist and a scholar in eyewitness memory research. Wells is a professor at Iowa State University with a research interest in the integration of both cognitive psychology and social psychology and its interface with law. He has conducted research on lineup procedures, reliability and accuracy of eyewitness identification. Wells has received many awards and honorary degrees, and he has gained recognition for his work and contributions to psychology and criminal justice.

John Donald Read is a Canadian psychologist and is currently employed as professor of psychology and chair of the psychology department at Simon Fraser University in Canada. He works primarily in the field of Law and Forensics and has conducted research in the fields of human memory, eyewitness memory and the legal system.

Elizabeth Kensinger is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Boston College. She is known for her research on emotion and memory over the human lifespan. She is co-author of the book Why We Forget and How To Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory, published in 2023 by Oxford University Press, which provides an overview of the psychology and neuroscience of memory. She also is the author of the book Emotional Memory Across the Adult Lifespan, which describes the selectivity of memory, i.e., how events infused with personal significance and emotion are much more memorable than nonemotional events. This book provides an overview of research on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying the formation and retrieval of emotional memories. Kensinger is co-author of a third book How Does Emotion Affect Attention and Memory? Attentional Capture, Tunnel Memory, and the Implications for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder with Katherine Mickley Steinmetz, which highlights the roles of emotion in determining what people pay attention to and later remember.

Amy Bradfield Douglass is a social psychologist whose research focus on the intersection of psychology and law specifically concerning eyewitness testimony. Douglass is a Whitehouse Professor of Psychology at Bates College. Douglass is also a publish author of two textbooks. She is most well known for her research, and is recognized as an expert for trial consulting.

Roy S. Malpass is a social psychologist known for his research in facial recognition and eyewitness identification. He is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso and the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

Stephan Charman is a forensic and legal psychologist who is known for his research in eyewitness memory. Charman is an associate professor of psychology at Florida International University.

Miko Wilford is a tenured associate professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts and a tenured associate professor of psychology at Iowa State University with research focused on eyewitness identification, learning and memory, and legal decision-making. She is a P.I. of the Psycho-Legal Experiments and Applications and developed a computer simulation software to study plea decision-making Outside of academia, she is a trial consultant for cases concerning eyewitness misidentification and false guilty pleas

Jeff Kukucka is a legal psychologist specializing in wrongful convictions. As of October 2024, he is an associate professor at Towson University.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 "PSYCHOLOGY & LAW LAB". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2024-09-30.
  2. ↑ Smalarz, Laura. "LinkedIn".
  3. 1 2 "Pre-Feedback Eyewitness Statements: Proposed Safeguard against Feedback Effects on Evaluations of Eyewitness Testimony | Office of Justice Programs". www.ojp.gov. Retrieved 2024-10-01.
  4. 1 2 "Laura Smalarz". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2024-10-01.
  5. ↑ Smalarz, Laura. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Laura-Smalarz.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. 1 2 Smalarz, Laura; Madon, Stephanie; Yang, Yueran; Guyll, Max; Buck, Sarah (August 2016). "The perfect match: Do criminal stereotypes bias forensic evidence analysis?". Law and Human Behavior. 40 (4): 420–429. doi:10.1037/lhb0000190. ISSN   1573-661X. PMID   27149288.
  7. ↑ Smalarz, Laura; Kornell, Nate; Vaughn, Kalif E.; Palmer, Matthew A. (June 2019). "Identification performance from multiple lineups: Should eyewitnesses who pick fillers be burned?". Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 8 (2): 221–232. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2019.03.001. ISSN   2211-369X.
  8. ↑ Smith, Andrew M.; Wells, Gary L.; Smalarz, Laura; Lampinen, James Michael (September 2018). "Increasing the Similarity of Lineup Fillers to the Suspect Improves the Applied Value of Lineups Without Improving Memory Performance: Commentary on Colloff, Wade, and Strange (2016)". Psychological Science. 29 (9): 1548–1551. doi:10.1177/0956797617698528. ISSN   0956-7976.
  9. 1 2 Smalarz, Laura; Scherr, Kyle C.; Kassin, Saul M. (December 2016). "Miranda at 50: A Psychological Analysis". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 25 (6): 455–460. doi:10.1177/0963721416665097. ISSN   0963-7214.
  10. ↑ "Laura Smalarz | ASU Search". search.asu.edu. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
  11. 1 2 "Laura Smalarz | Media Relations and Strategic Communications". newsroom.asu.edu. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
  12. ↑ "Eyewitness Testimony". obo. Retrieved 2024-10-03.
  13. ↑ Huynh, Que-Lam; Devos, Thierry; Smalarz, Laura (February 2011). "Perpetual Foreigner in One's Own Land: Potential Implications for Identity and Psychological Adjustment". Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 30 (2): 133–162. doi:10.1521/jscp.2011.30.2.133. ISSN   0736-7236. PMC   3092701 . PMID   21572896.
  14. 1 2 Smalarz, Laura; Wells, Gary L. (2013), Cutler, Brian L. (ed.), "Eyewitness certainty as a system variable.", Reform of eyewitness identification procedures., Washington: American Psychological Association, pp. 161–177, doi:10.1037/14094-008, ISBN   978-1-4338-1283-5 , retrieved 2024-10-03
  15. ↑ Quigley-Mcbride, Adele; Smalarz, Laura; Wells, Gary; Quigley-Mcbride, Adele; Smalarz, Laura; Wells, Gary (2011). "Eyewitness Testimony". obo. doi:10.1093/obo/9780199828340-0026 . Retrieved 2024-10-03.
  16. ↑ Smalarz, Laura; Madon, Stephanie; Turosak, Anna (August 2018). "Defendant stereotypicality moderates the effect of confession evidence on judgments of guilt". Law and Human Behavior. 42 (4): 355–368. doi:10.1037/lhb0000286. ISSN   1573-661X. PMID   29939062.
  17. ↑ Smith, Andrew M.; Wells, Gary L.; Smalarz, Laura; Lampinen, James Michael (September 2018). "Increasing the Similarity of Lineup Fillers to the Suspect Improves the Applied Value of Lineups Without Improving Memory Performance: Commentary on Colloff, Wade, and Strange (2016)". Psychological Science. 29 (9): 1548–1551. doi:10.1177/0956797617698528. ISSN   0956-7976. PMID   30074845.
  18. ↑ Smalarz, Laura; Greathouse, Sarah M.; Wells, Gary L.; Newirth, Karen A. (2016), Willis-Esqueda, Cynthia; Bornstein, Brian H. (eds.), "Psychological Science on Eyewitness Identification and the U.S. Supreme Court: Reconsiderations in Light of DNA-Exonerations and the Science of Eyewitness Identification", The Witness Stand and Lawrence S. Wrightsman, Jr., New York, NY: Springer, pp. 17–39, doi:10.1007/978-1-4939-2077-8_3, ISBN   978-1-4939-2077-8 , retrieved 2024-10-03
  19. ↑ Madon, Stephanie; Guyll, Max; Yang, Yueran; Smalarz, Laura; Marschall, Justin; Lannin, Daniel G. (April 2017). "A biphasic process of resistance among suspects: The mobilization and decline of self-regulatory resources". Law and Human Behavior. 41 (2): 159–172. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000221 . ISSN   1573-661X.
  20. ↑ Smith, Andrew M.; Wells, Gary L.; Smalarz, Laura; Lampinen, James Michael (September 2018). "Increasing the Similarity of Lineup Fillers to the Suspect Improves the Applied Value of Lineups Without Improving Memory Performance: Commentary on Colloff, Wade, and Strange (2016)". Psychological Science. 29 (9): 1548–1551. doi:10.1177/0956797617698528. ISSN   0956-7976. PMID   30074845.
  21. ↑ Smith, Andrew M.; Wells, Gary L.; Smalarz, Laura; Lampinen, James Michael (September 2018). "Increasing the Similarity of Lineup Fillers to the Suspect Improves the Applied Value of Lineups Without Improving Memory Performance: Commentary on Colloff, Wade, and Strange (2016)". Psychological Science. 29 (9): 1548–1551. doi:10.1177/0956797617698528. ISSN   0956-7976. PMID   30074845.
  22. ↑ Guyll, Max; Yang, Yueran; Madon, Stephanie; Smalarz, Laura; Lannin, Daniel G. (August 2019). "Mobilization and resistance in response to interrogation threat". Law and Human Behavior. 43 (4): 307–318. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000337 . ISSN   1573-661X.
  23. ↑ Smalarz, Laura; Douglass, Amy Bradfield; Chang, Angela (February 2020). "Eyewitness-identification decisions as Brady material: Disclosing information about prior decisions affects evaluations of eyewitnesses". Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 26 (1): 10–21. doi:10.1037/law0000213. ISSN   1939-1528.
  24. ↑ Smalarz, Laura; Wells, Gary L. (December 2020). "Do Multiple Doses of Feedback Have Cumulative Effects on Eyewitness Confidence?". Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 9 (4): 508–518. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2020.06.003.
  25. ↑ Lebensfeld, Taylor; Smalarz, Laura (2022). "Cross-Examination Fails to Safeguard Against Feedback Effects on Eyewitness Testimony". The Wrongful Conviction Law Review. 3 (3): 240–269. doi: 10.29173/wclawr80 . ISSN   2563-2574.
  26. ↑ Smalarz, Laura (September 2021). "Suspect bias: A neglected threat to the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence". Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 10 (3): 356–362. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.06.005. ISSN   2211-369X.
  27. ↑ Smith, Andrew M.; Smalarz, Laura; Ditchfield, Ryan; Ayala, Nydia T. (November 2021). "Evaluating the claim that high confidence implies high accuracy in eyewitness identification". Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 27 (4): 479–491. doi:10.1037/law0000324. ISSN   1939-1528.
  28. ↑ Wells, Gary L.; Smalarz, Laura (December 2022). "Lives destroyed by distorted recollections of fluency, attention, view, and confidence: A sin of bias in eyewitness identification". Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 11 (4): 461–464. doi:10.1037/mac0000087. ISSN   2211-369X.
  29. ↑ Smith, Andrew M.; Smalarz, Laura; Wells, Gary L.; Lampinen, James Michael; Mackovichova, Simona (December 2022). "Fair lineups improve outside observers' discriminability, not eyewitnesses' discriminability: Evidence for differential filler-siphoning using empirical data and the WITNESS computer-simulation architecture". Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. 11 (4): 534–544. doi:10.1037/mac0000021. ISSN   2211-369X.
  30. ↑ Smalarz, Laura; Ireri, Hussein; Fink, Jacob A. (November 2021). "Presumed-blind lineup administrators can influence eyewitnesses' identification decisions and confidence". Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 27 (4): 466–478. doi:10.1037/law0000317. ISSN   1939-1528.
  31. ↑ Smalarz, Laura; Eerdmans, Rose E.; Lawrence, Megan L.; Kulak, Kylie; Salerno, Jessica M. (February 2023). "Counterintuitive race effects in legal and nonlegal contexts". Law and Human Behavior. 47 (1): 119–136. doi:10.1037/lhb0000515. ISSN   1573-661X.
  32. ↑ Salerno, Jessica M.; Kulak, Kylie; Smalarz, Laura; Eerdmans, Rose E.; Lawrence, Megan L.; Dao, Tramanh (February 2023). "The role of social desirability and establishing nonracist credentials on mock juror decisions about Black defendants". Law and Human Behavior. 47 (1): 100–118. doi:10.1037/lhb0000496. ISSN   1573-661X. PMID   36931852.
  33. ↑ Faison, Lakia; Smalarz, Laura; Madon, Stephanie; Clow, Kimberley A. (February 2023). "The stigma of wrongful conviction differs for White and Black exonerees". Law and Human Behavior. 47 (1): 137–152. doi:10.1037/lhb0000522. ISSN   1573-661X. PMID   36931854.
  34. ↑ Lebensfeld, Taylor C.; Smalarz, Laura (2024-09-01). "Witnessing-condition information differentially affects evaluations of high- and moderate-confidence eyewitness identifications". Cognition. 250: 105841. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105841. ISSN   0010-0277. PMID   38852371.
  35. 1 2 3 Smalarz, Laura (2020-07-04). "6 eyewitnesses misidentified a murderer – here's what went wrong in the lineup". The Conversation. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
  36. ↑ "One Minute Remaining".
  37. 1 2 "NCUIRE gives undergrads opportunity to conduct research on West campus | ASU News". news.asu.edu. Retrieved 2024-10-02.
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